


Progeny

by ArgentNoelle



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Family Dynamics, Gen, Hero Worship, Longing, Manipulative Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentNoelle/pseuds/ArgentNoelle
Summary: When Zod appears, he says he comes in peace. [AU loosely based on BvS]
Relationships: Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Kal-El & Dru-Zod





	Progeny

When Zod appears, he says he comes in peace.

* * *

“Kal-El,” Zod says, smiling at Superman. It’s strange, still, to be called by that name. Clark doesn’t know enough about his heritage, thought for years that he was just some kind of freak. He doesn’t know what to think about this old friend of his father’s, taking him under his wing. But Zod knows about Krypton. He has a ship, filled with archives, and symbols that match the ones Clark knows from the few possessions that came with him.

“Zod,” Clark—Kal-El—says. They are up on the balcony, and below them is the whole city of Metropolis, glittering in the sunlight of a perfect afternoon, the sky cloudless and blue. Something in Clark’s heart is light, and he feels like he can fly. Well. He _can_ fly, as it turns out. Something Zod has been helping him out with. It’s become a familiar sight to see the two of them streaking over Metropolis, or even farther. But Zod doesn’t become involved in the “Superman fiasco” as he calls it. Clark could do with a less embarrassing name, but he doesn’t mind. Being a hero is something he can do, somewhere he can make a difference. Zod leaves that to him.

“I understand you want to be a hero,” he’d said. “I don’t fault you for it. It’s a noble goal. But I’m not going to be that person.”

“But your powers,” Clark asked. “Don’t you think we could do so much more, if it was the two of us?”

“Maybe,” Zod answered, enigmatic. “I’m not as young as you. I don’t have energy to spend running around after humans all the time. That’s not to say I won’t help you at all, Kal-El. But don’t count on me.”

In hindsight, it’s the most honest thing Zod ever said to him. _Don’t count on me_.

But Clark had.

Right now, before everything in Metropolis is crumbling around them, Clark feels younger than he’s felt for years. Its as though someone who knows what to do is taking care of things, is taking care of him. Zod isn’t a replacement for his father—for either of them. But Zod is alive, and Clark finds that that counts for very much indeed.

“I think he’s a creep,” Lois had said bluntly, as they sat together in her apartment off work and Clark surreptitiously re-heated the take-out they’d never gotten around to eating. (In their defense, they’d been friends for a year and a half, but had only been going out for two weeks, and the novelty of properly touching had not yet worn off. He thought, whimsically, that perhaps it never would.)

“Lois, give him a chance!” Clark said, embarrassed and angry. Disappointed in Lois’s reaction, and defensive of Zod, the only other living member of his species. “You can’t expect him to come off as human. He hasn’t lived here that long—”

“Did I say anything about him being an alien, Kent?” Lois said, giving him her own disappointed look. “Do you think I’m a xenophobe? I said he was a creep. _Entirely_. _Different_.”

“You can’t compare him to Superman—”

“I’m not,” Lois said. “I’m comparing him to the wide array of people I’ve met in my life, and that includes some really scummy guys. I think I know a creep when I see one. And honestly… I know I might be more sensitive to this just because I’m a woman, but usually you pick up on those things too. So what I want to know is, why are you so keen on defending him? You haven’t even met the man. And _no_ , a five minute interview does not count.”

“I just…” Clark stops, frustrated. He wants to explain, but any explanation would necessarily have to start with, _Uh, oh, by the way Lois, I’m Superman_. How can he explain the nights they’ve spent talking about Kryptonian history, talking about his family’s past? About what its like to be the last members of their race, to be lost on a distant planet far from a home they can never return to? That makes it sound maudlin, and they aren’t. But it’s just nice to know you aren’t alone. Even if Clark could never imagine living anywhere else but Earth, it means so much to know that. Perhaps he is biased in Zod’s favor, but Lois doesn’t know him the way Clark does, and he can’t correct her because there’s no way _Clark Kent_ , reporter, who hails from no farther in the universe than Smallville, Kansas, would know anything about Zod.

Zod and Kal-El have brunch on top of the second tallest building in Metropolis. The tallest belongs to Lex Luthor (the second), and he’s got zoning laws to make sure his building _remains_ the tallest.

“But,” Zod says, with a glitter in his eye, “not for long.” It’s something of a hobby for Zod to plot how they’ll arrange the red-haired billionaire’s downfall. Clark doesn’t find it in him to protest. Luthor has done too many underhanded things to gain his sympathy, and no amount of exposés can stand against the man’s influence and reach. The conglomerate built by the father is taken up by the son.

There are berries drizzled in honey, and when Zod laughs, something in his stern, forbidding expression seems to glow, as though Clark is seeing through the blinking field of a lighthouse window, drawing him in.

“It’s such unparalleled luck,” Zod says. “Finding you… finding this place… together we’ll build such empires that no one could dream of.”

“I’ll leave the business maneuvers to you,” Clark says, with fond amusement.

Zod laughs again, quieter, and puts a hand on Clark’s arm. “If only your father could see you now. Could see _us_.”

There’s something under his proud joy, something darker that makes Clark shiver, feeling for a moment uncertain, almost afraid. Not because he fears what Zod will do, but because he fears what he would let him do. He’s seen enough madness, enough of the glittering light of possessiveness, to realize what it looks like on another’s face. For a moment, he thinks of Lois, thinks he should have taken his spur of the moment free time to visit her instead, but Zod had—as though knowing the moment he’d had nothing else to occupy him, been floating for one split second between the earth and the sky—called his name, his Kryptonian one, softly from miles away. No one else on the planet could have possibly heard him. And Clark had come.

* * *

Zod is Clark’s responsibility. Not because he had the strength to defeat him in the end, but because of all the times when he didn’t.

In Lex’s mad ramblings about fathers and sons, about power and freedom, and the taking of it, the only way one can (by killing God)—Clark finds something terribly familiar. If only he’d had the excuse Luthor had: being around the man from birth, the abuse, the constant terror. Anyone could excuse murder under those circumstances. He can, at least. Not anything else Lex has done but _that_ —

He should have known better. Had. Could have. But he had wanted, so much, for all the pictures Zod painted to be _true_.


End file.
